Silent Hill

Konami , Team Silent

Konami

February 23, 1999 March 4, 1999

Game mode

Gamepad , keyboard

action

Harold "Harry" Mason, a writer who has been widowed for four years, goes on vacation with his seven-year-old daughter Cheryl, which they both want to spend in the small town of Silent Hill at Cheryl's request. During the nightly drive he is startled when suddenly a young girl appears to be crossing the street. He tries to evade and drives into a ditch, whereupon he loses consciousness. When he wakes up again, Cheryl has disappeared without a trace. Then Harry goes to the nearby Silent Hill to look for her there. When he reaches the city, he notices that it is shrouded in fog and that monsters are running around. Harry's desperate search for his missing daughter turns into an adventure in a world where reality and dream seem to blur.

Game principle and technology

There is not one ending in Silent Hill, there are five. Which of these endings the player experiences depends on some actions later in the game, in which one has to choose between two or more options. So it can happen, for example, that you don't save Mason's daughter or you even die yourself. One of the ends can only be reached by playing the game again in an additional mode.

Production notes

Small changes have been made to the game for the Japanese and European markets: At school you don't find small monsters that are reminiscent of children, as in the US version, but headless monsters with large claws. In addition, the US version lacks a letter which explains aspects of the plot and which is present in the Japanese and European versions.

For publication in the German PlayStation Store, the game was given an age rating of “16 years and over” by the USK . Up to this point, the age rating was “No youth rating ” and the game was marked with the “USK-18” symbol.

Silent Hill 2

action

James Sunderland falls into a deep hole full of guilt and depression after the death of his wife Mary. Three years later he seems to have coped with her death to some extent when another event throws him off track again: He receives a letter. The text, the name on the envelope and the handwriting give him the impression that Mary, his wife, believed to be dead, must have written this letter. The letter says that Mary would be waiting for James at her 'special place' in Silent Hill. James heads headlong into the small town to look for Mary.

While searching, he meets several other characters who are in the otherwise deserted small town. On the one hand there is Angela Orosco, who is looking for her missing mother. Or Eddie Dombrowski, who at first glance seems very amiable, but has a very eventful past. You also meet Maria, a pretty young woman who outwardly looks very much like James' wife Mary. However, she has a different philosophy of life. Last but not least, there is Laura. She is only eight years old and seems to know James' wife very well. They were in the same hospital and had a very deep friendship.

After James has entered the city and looked around a bit, he meets one of the numerous monsters for the first time at a nailed-up tunnel. He kills it with a wooden stick and continues on the search, because love and, above all, clarification as to whether Mary is alive or not, is worth it to him.

After a long search through the whole city and certain buildings, such as the hospital, the museum, the prison, or through an apartment block, he finally finds a video cassette in a hotel where the two of them spent their honeymoon. He pushes it into the video recorder and sees something horrific: he himself killed his wife. He couldn't bear her sight and her suffering any longer, whereupon he wanted to relieve both of them from their torments. The letter he received was an illusion, for he was unable to cope with the gravity of his crime; and, caught in his own delusions, repressed the act. He is mentally unstable and only made up the letter to return to Silent Hill, as this city is their 'special place'.

Characters

James Sunderland (29 years), a clerk by profession, is the main character. A letter from his dead wife Mary leads him to Silent Hill.

Mary Shepherd-Sunderland (25 years old) is a housewife and James' wife. She allegedly died of an illness three years ago. Ever since she first visited Silent Hill with James, it has been a place of memories for them both.

Maria (25 years) is a stripper by profession. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Mary, though her personality and dress style are the exact opposite. For some reason she keeps popping up on James.

Laura (8 years) is a student and is in the 3rd grade. She was in the same hospital as Mary. Since she no longer had a mother, she loved Mary as if she were her real mother.

Angela Orosco (19 years old) is looking for her mother. After graduating from high school, she fled home but was found and brought back by her father.

Eddie Dombrowski (23 years old), a gas station employee by profession, is a young man who is teased because of his weight. Although he is usually passive, there is also an extremely violent side to him.

Silent Hill 3

action

Heather Mason wakes up in a mall fast food restaurant after a nightmare . She is stopped by a private detective named Douglas Cartland , who asks her to speak to her about her birth. Heather refuses, but the persistent detective pursues her so that she takes refuge in the nearest ladies' room. There she climbs out of the window so as not to have to face the detective's annoying questions. Outside, she encounters monsters and strange behavior.

In contrast to the second part, the third part of the series is connected to the plot of the first part and continues it. It's about 17-year-old Heather , daughter of Harry Mason . At the end of the game Douglas asks Heather for her real name and Heather replies, "Cheryl, the name my father gave me". During the game, a conversation between Heather and Douglas makes it clear that Heather is the "rebirth" of Alessa , who had created a baby 17 years ago before her death and passed on her memories to it. So Alessa could continue to exist as part of the baby's psyche. Alessa had given the baby to Harry , who then raised it as his own daughter and named her Cheryl . The name Heather is only there to protect her anonymity so that no one can reveal her true identity . The purpose of the name Heather is to keep the player from who she really is until the end.

Silent Hill 4: The Room

Konami , Team Silent

Konami

PS2, Xbox: June 17, 2004 (PS2) September 7, 2004 September 17, 2004 Windows: September 7, 2004 September 24, 2004

PlayStation 2 , Xbox , Windows

Game mode

Keyboard , gamepad

Silent Hill 4 booth at E3 2004

The fourth part of the "Silent Hill" series was released in September 2004 for PlayStation 2 , Xbox and PC at the same time and has its own story. No prior knowledge of the first three parts is necessary. Still, there is a connection in the game to Part 2, in which a newspaper clipping points to the serial killer Walter Sullivan, who plays a major role in Silent Hill 4. The background to Walter Sullivan, which was only briefly touched on in Silent Hill 2, is thus clarified.

Development history

The development of Silent Hill 4 began shortly after the release of Silent Hill 2 and parallel to the third part. It was originally planned as a standalone game under the working title Room 302 and was later incorporated into the Silent Hill series. With this step, Silent Hill 4 contains the many game elements that were untypical for the previous parts.

action

Henry Townshend suffers from nightmares. He's had the same dream every night for the past five days, of being locked in his apartment in South Ashfield.

When waking up, however, this nightmare turns out to be reality one day, because the door to his apartment is locked from the inside with locks and chains and a stranger also “Don't go out! Walter! ”Wrote on his apartment door. The television and radio are dead, the windows cannot be opened, Henry's knocking and his calls are not heard. The looks from the peephole and from his windows confirm to Henry that life around his apartment is still going as usual. Finally, Henry finds a way out of his apartment through a hole in the wall of his bathroom. But beyond the hole, the outside world is by no means waiting for him, but rather hideous nightmare worlds, in which he can only watch the horror take its course.

Innovations

Overall, Silent Hill 4 differs greatly from its predecessors in terms of plot, game mechanics and scenarios. The differences include, among other things, that the action does not take place in the well-known Silent Hill, but the protagonist always has the opportunity to return to his apartment and that there is no dream world typical of Silent Hill (the emphasis here is on 'typical' , since there is a parallel world as such). The horror in this part of the series is less based on visual effects, but rather on psychological fears and Kafkaesque scenarios. Each world has to be traversed twice in a slightly different form. To the disappointment of some fans, well-known fear makers that set the series apart (for example the flashlight or the radio) have been left out.

Silent Hill Origins

Climax Entertainment

Konami

PSP: November 6, 2007 November 16, 2007 November 30, 2007 December 6, 2007 PS2: March 4, 2008 May 16, 2008 May 23, 2008

PlayStation Portable , PlayStation 2

Game mode

Handheld , gamepad

UMD , DVD-ROM

On May 10, 2006, Konami announced the action adventure Silent Hill: Origins (original title: Silent Hill Zero ) for the PSP. The background music was composed by Akira Yamaoka . The game was released in November 2007. In March 2008, a version for the PlayStation 2 was released in North America, followed by the release in Europe in the following May. Silent Hill Origins is about what happened before Silent Hill 1.

action

The player takes on the role of the truck driver Travis Grady , who unintentionally comes to Silent Hill and is constantly confronted with his past while trying to leave the city. Silent Hill Origins takes place in a time before the first part of the series, in which the city became what it is today: from a quiet resort to a stronghold of evil. There will also be a reunion with Dahlia and Alessa Gillespie, Lisa Garland and Dr. Michael Kaufmann give.

background

The first Silent Hill game on the PSP is about to become an important part of the series, in which you find out how evil came about in Silent Hill and resolve some of the other ambiguities of the first 4 parts. For the first time, a Silent Hill game was not developed by the Silent team, but by the American development studio Climax. Some time ago, however, the Americans passed the project on to their English colleagues.

Silent Hill: Homecoming

Konami , Foundation 9 , Double Helix Games

Konami

PS3, Xbox 360: September 30, 2008 February 27, 2009 Windows: November 6, 2008 February 27, 2009

PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , Windows

Game mode

Keyboard , gamepad

Blu-ray , DVD-ROM , download

information

German version defused; Original version indexed and confiscated

publication

On April 21, 2008, Konami announced the fifth part of Silent Hill: Homecoming. The game was released for the American market at the end of September 2008; the official European date was October 30th. Due to the high level of violence, the game in Germany was not labeled by the USK. The Australian OFLC also refused the classification, which amounts to a sales ban in Australia. To avoid a conflict with the protection of minors, Konami decided to make a censored version for both countries. For this reason, the European release date has been postponed to February 26, 2009.

On November 19, 2010 the Frankfurt am Main District Court confiscated the original version , which had been indexed since August of that year, for glorifying violence (Ref .: 4843 Js 238595/10 - 931 Gs). It is therefore subject to a distribution ban and may no longer be sold.

action

Alex Shepherd is a 22-year-old war veteran who is recovering from a war injury at a military hospital. When the premonition creeps up that his younger brother Joshua might be in trouble, he returns to his New England hometown of Shepherd's Glen to look for him. He finds his mother in an almost catatonic state, his brother and father have disappeared without a trace and an unusually thick fog lies over the city.

Game mechanics

The game includes a new combat system that allows the player to use more complex and offensive or defensive techniques. This is justified with the military training that Alex had previously enjoyed, which is in contrast to the previous parts, in which the protagonist was always thrown into the action unprepared and consequently had no combat experience.

background

The development of the fifth part was handed over to the American studio Foundation 9 Entertainment, which emerged from a collaboration between The Collective and Backbone Entertainment, which means that the former Japanese team Silent will no longer have any influence on the work, which many fans of the series will say is criticized. However, producer and composer Akira Yamaoka is still responsible for the soundtrack.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Climax Entertainment

Konami

Wii : December 8, 2009 February 26, 2010 March 25, 2010 April 22, 2010 PS2, PSP : January 19, 2010 February 26, 2010 March 25, 2010 April 22, 2010

Nintendo Wii , PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable

Game mode

Handheld , gamepad , Wiimote

UMD , DVD-ROM

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a in survival horror located somewhere genre of action-adventure , in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii was released (in North America, 2,010 in Europe) and 2010 for the Sony PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. This is not a completely new chapter in the saga, but a reinterpretation of the first Silent Hill.

Like Silent Hill: Origins, the game was developed by Climax Entertainment . The background music comes once again from the pen of Akira Yamaoka .

action

At the start of the game you find yourself in the practice of a psychotherapist , where the player has to complete a psychological test. Then the scenario changes to the fog-shrouded Silent Hill. At key moments you always come back to practice. Harry's experiences in Silent Hill do not take place in the present, but are recapitulated in a therapeutic session.

Similar to the original Silent Hill , the player as Harry Mason visits the small town of Silent Hill together with his daughter Cheryl. Both are in a car accident on the way and Harry passes out. When he comes to, Cheryl is gone. While searching for his daughter, Harry is repeatedly attacked by monsters that change depending on the answers given by the psychologist. In the course of the game the protagonist meets Cybil Bennett (SH1), Dahlia Gillespie (SH1) and Lisa Garland (SH), among others. In the last part of the therapy it turns out that Harold "Harry" Mason had a fatal accident in a car accident 18 years ago and that his now adult daughter Cheryl went through therapy with a psychologist. The story of Harry and his daughter are in truth his daughter's dreams, and the monsters are representative of her fears.

Although Silent Hill: Shattered Memories seems to take up the plot of the first video game part, the story has been partially changed. Even producer Tomm Hulett doesn't want the game to be seen as a remake .

background

After competitor Capcom released a remake of the first offshoot of their Resident Evil franchise for the GameCube , many fans wanted to do the same with the first Silent Hill, which until then had only been released for Sony's PlayStation . In 2006, as part of the shooting of the movie, which was thematically also (remotely) concerned with the series debut, the first rumors about such a project finally came into circulation, which solidified in October 2009 as a new "Silent Hill" in the database of the British Board of Film Classification showed up. The official announcement was made in the May (2009) issue of the American Nintendo Power magazine.

The special thing about Shattered Memories is the dynamic adaptation of various gameplay elements to the player on the basis of psychological tests that have to be completed during the course of the game. By “personalizing” the gaming experience, the horror atmosphere of Silent Hill should have a stronger effect.

reception

Reviews of Shattered Memories were largely positive. The story was praised in particular, as well as good graphics for Wii standards and the equally good motion control. Among other things, the sometimes frustrating nightmare sections were criticized. At Giant Bomb it was Wii Game of the Year 2009. The German computer game and video game magazine 4Players awarded the Nintendo Wii version the gold award and raised it to a reference title in the Action Department. The trade magazine Adventure Gamers placed Silent Hill: Shattered Memories 2011 in its list of Top 100 All-Time Adventure Games at number 77.

Silent Hill: Downpour

As part of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2010, publisher Konami revealed details of the latest offshoot of the series. It was developed by the Czech development team Vatra Games . The developers promised an approximation of the game principle to the previous parts, especially the second part, which was highly acclaimed by gamers and critics alike. This time, the player takes on the role of convict Murphy Pendleton, who ends up in Silent Hill after an accident in his prisoner transporter and subsequent escape from the police.

Silent Hill: Downpour was released on March 29, 2012 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Silent Hill: Downpour is the first part of the series, the soundtrack of which was no longer composed by Akira Yamaoka, who left Konami in 2009. The Downpour soundtrack was created by Daniel Licht .

action

Prisoner Murphy Pendleton spends his life as an inmate in one prison until one day he is about to be transferred to another. However, the bus driver's carelessness leads to an accident: The bus falls down a hill. Pendleton survives and tries to find a way out of the cursed city of Silent Hill. On the journey through the nightmarish world you meet other people, including the policewoman who was on the bus to the transfer, a mysterious postman or a local nun in the monastery.

You have the option of following the actual main story, or you can turn to the numerous side tasks that are hidden all over Silent Hill.

Innovations

Silent Hill: Downpour adopts many game elements from its predecessor Silent Hill: Homecoming . The player has to make moral decisions several times in the game that can affect the ending. In Downpour the city of Silent Hill is much more open than in all previous parts and the player has the opportunity to do smaller side quests apart from the main story and to interact with characters that bring additional rewards. The main character can only carry one melee weapon, which gradually weakens until it breaks.

Further offshoots

Silent Hill HD Collection

The Silent Hill HD Collection , released in March 2012 and developed by Hijinx Studios, contains Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 , which have been technically revised for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 . In addition to a higher resolution and HD textures, the music and synchronization have been re-recorded and achievements have been added. Silent Hill 2 offers the option to switch between the old and a new synchronization, while Silent Hill 3 only has the new synchronization for legal reasons. In addition to the main story, Silent Hill 2 also contains the side story Born from a Wish , which was previously only included in the Director's Cut and tells the story of Maria.

The Silent Hill HD Collection had to take a lot of criticism due to the various bugs in both games at the time of the release, including severe frame breaks and crashes. While the PS3 version later received a patch that fixed many errors and bugs, development for the Xbox 360 version was canceled. As the developer Hijinx reported in May 2012, the HD remakes are based on an unfinished source code, as the codes of the finished game versions could no longer be found by the original developer Konami.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories

WayForward Technologies

Konami

October 16, 2012 November 2, 2012 November 8, 2012 February 14, 2013